Let them eat pie; festival benefits food ministries

Submitted Photo
Carley Harrity, a member of the youth group of All Saints' Episcopal Church, admired the artwork created by her sister Brianna, for the Pie Festival logo and then baked her own real lattice crust cherry pie.

No four-and-twenty blackbirds were baked in a pie but many other delicious fillings were contained in the offerings at the recent All Saints’ Episcopal Church Pie Festival.

Set up on the church parking lot, the event featured pies for buying, pies for tasting and pies for judging, as well as vendors tables, games for young people and movie princesses.

The festival, chaired by church members Kathryn Gallagher and Liz Parker, was the brain child of Gallagher who wanted to create an activity to benefit the on-going food ministries of area churches.

“We have been working with St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church in a variety of activities each month,” noted Gallagher. During the meetings, we asked if they would like to participate in the pie festival. They jumped in right away and they gave us the idea to ask the other churches in the (Episcopal) deanery and the other churches in the West End who have food ministries. Then it all just came together.

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“The purpose of the Pie Festival was to bring churches sponsoring food ministries together in fellowship to celebrate and financially support their continuing efforts,” Gallagher said. “Each church was invited to enter a Pie Baking Contest and compete for the title of Best Pie 2012.”

Participating churches included Christ Church United Church of Christ, Calvary Baptist, Haws Avenue United Methodist, St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic, All Saints’ Episcopal, St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal and St. John’s Episcopal.

The 1st Place Pie in the Best Pie in the West End of Norristown competition went to Nancy Foster of Christ Church U.C.C. for her Apple Cranberry Pie. Runner-up in the same category was a Pecan Pie submitted by Nancy Dollahan of Haws Avenue United Methodist Church.

Kathy Phifer of St. John’s Episcopal Church won both the 1st and 2nd prizes for the Best Episcopal Pie 2012 for her Apple Streusel Tart and Viennese Apricot Pie, respectively.

Young ladies from All Saints’ took the prizes in the Youth Category with Emily Spottiswood wining 1st place for her Candy Bar Pie and Carley Harrity winning 2nd place for her Lattice-crust Cherry Pie.

In addition, All Saints’ published a cookbook containing pie recipes contributed by members and friends.

The recipes include not only dessert pies but appetizer and main dish pies as well.

Money from the pie sale and from donations made at the event was divided evenly among the churches to support their food ministries and Gallagher says the enthusiastic response was to continue to make the Pie Festival an annual event.

“All the other churches really want to do that,” she said.

Mother Sandra Etemad, rector of All Saints’ agreed on the success.

“Besides having a lot of fun,” she said, “it was a joy to work with other congregations and to focus on the needs of others. My dream is to not only make it an annual event for us but to have other congregations sponsor festivals as well.”

Pie recipe cookbooks remain on sale at All Saints’ and can be purchased for $5 each at the church’s Second Time Around Shop on Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, send an email to allsaints535@yahoo.com.